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Archive for May 25th, 2013

Why did this season which started with so much promise end on such a down note?

It’s really effing simple to explain….

Gaborik & Richards.

People want to blame Torts, and to be honest, he does shoulder some of the blame, I just don’t like the way we play the oppositions D in our own zone…but we’ll get to that in a few days after I’ve had a chance to digest everything. The real problem is simple. Your #1 Center and your #1 Left Winger, who combined for 1.7 points per game last year only gave us 1.28 points per game. Over the course of 82 games, we’re talking about a MASSIVE 34 point drop off between the 2. That’s not taking into account that both Gabby and Richards did almost all their damage in a handful of games and were complete no-shows for the rest of time.

Oh, yeah, and, for the Rangers elimination game, Gabby was sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere, and Brad Richards was a healthy scratch thanks to his PUTRID play.

That’s the single biggest reason we lost. The 2nd? Injuries. I get that all teams have injuries, but we’re without Staal, Sauer, Stralman, Clowe, and Powe for that elimination game tonight. That’s a #1, a #3, and a #4 defenseman, a top 6 forward, and a strong penalty killer (who really would have helped us in this series).

The 3rd reason? The Boston Bruins are a fraking good team. Give those guys credit, they are a REALLY, REALLY good team. This isn’t like many of the other losses we’ve had over the years, this was complete and utter domination that even a God-like Henrik Lundqvist couldn’t stop. There have been many series we’ve lost where Henrik sorta ran outta gas from bailing us out…no, Henrik didn’t run out of gas..he was miraculous at times, and STILL we got beat. That team is REAL good…and you know where, they’re still going to get slaughtered by Pittsburgh. Nobody is beating the Pens, they are just too damn good.

That’s neither here nor there though.

There are a lot of positives for this team, and there are a lot of places we can improve. Lots of big time decisions to be made this offseason, and some of our kids are going to start getting paid. Will be interesting to see it all unfold.

I’ll post a more thorough breakdown of this year in the next few days…maybe after breakup day when we find out who was injured with what.